'Till death do us part?' Not in Greenwich

Maggie Gordon

Updated 8:54 pm, Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Marriage vows include a promise to love one another as long as both shall live. But in Greenwich, more than one in three grooms who walked down the aisle in 2012 were doing so for the second, third or fourth time.

A Hearst Connecticut Media Group analysis of 4,399 marriages performed in 2012 across eight Southwestern Connecticut cities and towns -- Stamford, Greenwich, Norwalk, Darien, Bridgeport, Fairfield, Bethel and Danbury -- found that Greenwich had the highest percentage of second, third or fourth marriages in the area.

With 65 percent of grooms marrying for the first time in 2012, along with 67 percent of brides, Greenwich had fewer first-time brides and grooms than any of the other towns. Of the 355 marriage licenses on file at the Town Clerk's office, only 189 -- or 53 percent -- were first weddings for both the bride and groom, compared with 64 percent in Stamford.

In total, 30 percent of grooms married in Greenwich in 2012 were marrying for the second time, while 5 percent were marrying for the third time and 0.6 percent (that's two grooms -- a 59 year-old and a 66-year-old) were married for the fourth time. At the same time, 27 percent of brides married in Greenwich were saying "I do" for the second time, and another 5 percent were doing so for the third time.

Those rates are significantly higher than the national trend, according to a 2011 report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, which shows that 18.9 percent of women and 19.7 percent of men married during a single calendar year were entering into second marriages.

Each of the eight municipalities analyzed had more second and third marriages than the national average. The census report shows that 76 percent of brides married within one calendar year were celebrating their first marriages, along with 73.8 percent of grooms. In Southwestern Connecticut, the numbers shook out to 72 percent of brides and 70 percent of grooms.

Greenwich was followed by Bethel for the highest share of second and third weddings. In Bethel, 29 percent of grooms were married for the second time and 4 percent for the third time; 19 percent of brides were married for the second time, while 8 percent for the third time. There were no fourth marriages recorded in 2012 for either brides or grooms in Bethel.